Camera requirement

[Steve Demeter]

But the $$$rainlight rule only applies to Formula Cars and Sports Racers!!1

[John Green]

And I wonder why I quit the SCCA so many years ago!

[Steve Demeter]

I was thinking, This might prove to be a major pain for our stewards of the meet. In the past if you thought someone had done you wrong with their driving, you had to rely on someone else seeing it and agreeing with you. A few years back I was lapping a DSR on the outside of a turn. On corner exit he pulled directly in front of me (like about 6 feet in front of me) going about 20 mph slower than I was) then proceeded to slow down. Needless to say it caused me more excitement than I cared fro. No one saw it so I was out of luck. Now with the required camera, I have definitive proof of the incident and a protest is in the offing. Particularly since the guy was a jerk when I asked him what happened.

I can see lots more driving protest coming from the cameras.

Anyone else have thoughts on this aspect??

[Peter Olivola]

I was thinking, This might prove to be a major pain for our stewards of the meet. In the past if you thought someone had done you wrong with their driving, you had to rely on someone else seeing it and agreeing with you. A few years back I was lapping a DSR on the outside of a turn. On corner exit he pulled directly in front of me (like about 6 feet in front of me) going about 20 mph slower than I was) then proceeded to slow down. Needless to say it caused me more excitement than I cared fro. No one saw it so I was out of luck. Now with the required camera, I have definitive proof of the incident and a protest is in the offing. Particularly since the guy was a jerk when I asked him what happened.

I can see lots more driving protest coming from the cameras.

Anyone else have thoughts on this aspect??

Topeka has the stats, but my sense is there hasn't been a significant change in the number of protests at Majors. I've been asked to look at videos and give an opinion, most which haven't resulted in a protest.

[problemchild]

I was thinking, This might prove to be a major pain for our stewards of the meet.

Most serious racers have had cameras for many years so ramping up the rules will likely change very little. If tech people start ramping up their enforcement, it will still have little effect on the racing, but will drive up costs for casual racers, possibly driving a few away.

It does require some knowledge to keep the cameras working reliably, so most people that have not already followed the trend, will struggle to get reliable video.

[John Nesbitt]

I was thinking, This might prove to be a major pain for our stewards of the meet. ...

I can see lots more driving protest coming from the cameras.

Anyone else have thoughts on this aspect??

Based on my experience, quite the opposite. I have been on the SOM at two events this year, one a Super Tour. Having video, especially from following cars, made it possible to reach (what I believe to be) well-founded decisions. If anything, it reduced the effort involved.

The other point that I might make is that, universally, drivers were happy to provide video. Even drivers not directly involved in the incident in question, and even if it cost them some time/delay in leaving the track.

Nobody had 'forgotten' to power his camera up or to insert a MicroSD card. What I did see, and based on a small sample, was that GoPro cameras seem to be very sensitive to hard knocks. A couple of drivers told me that they had replaced their GoPros with simple (no extra functions) GoPro knock-offs, bought for $75 form eBay. Fewer functions seems to equal fewer ways to fail.

[JoshuaJustice]

It's easy to lose video of a session because a SD card is full. It's also easy to have a camera get whacked sideways by the umbrella you're using to shade yourself on the grid in an open-cockpit car. (Ironically, a sideways camera might still be useful for incident review if it's the right kind of sideways! But that's a 50/50 shot, hah.)

[FVRacer21]

It's easy to lose video of a session because a SD card is full. It's also easy to have a camera get whacked sideways by the umbrella you're using to shade yourself on the grid in an open-cockpit car. (Ironically, a sideways camera might still be useful for incident review if it's the right kind of sideways! But that's a 50/50 shot, hah.)

I found by getting the right size card (some cameras are limited) and not running the highest video setting, I could get over 4 hours from a card. Thus I can turn it on in the paddock and just let it run. Charge and run another session later on the same card. I set it up to break into 5 minute sections, so if something happens at least some of the session is not lost. A bit of a pain to edit but not too bad.

ChrisZ

[JoshuaJustice]

For gopros, sure. I've lost two videos on my AIM SmartyCam. One was definitely from me being a moron who didn't check the SD card usage, another was just some... mystery failure. It recorded me driving to the grid and shutting the car off, and recorded me driving back from tech, but didn't record the race... didn't even skip a number, it's like it just decided "nope, not gonna bother to record this session. Oh you got a podium? Too bad, no video for you!"